A/N: Posted 'cause I really wanna finish this fic! And thanks to all people who reviewed, they mean so much to me...and for those who didn't, BOO TO YOU. Unless you do review in which case I take it back.

And now...the last chapter.

Kiro was standing in the middle of the room, wearing nothing but some khaki trousers. His chest was bare; he was clutching a shirt like it was the last real thing in this world. His head was lowered, but this couldn't hide the bandage Hatori saw winding around it. Or the naked scrape down the side of his cheek.

He opened his mouth, then caught their reflections in the mirror behind Kiro. Hatori made a guttural sound.

Kiro had removed his bandages, so Hatori could see the man's muscled back in the mirror…if 'back' was the word for the mass of mutilated flesh reflected in that shiny surface. Everything took on a slow, dream-like quality that happens in certain situations. Hatori saw, with awful clarity, the 12 Zodiac animals carved into Kiro's skin, the web that linked them all, and in the centre, one red word:

AKITO'S

He saw the whiskers on the Tiger, the Boar's bristles, all the congealed, sloppily-knitting scar tissue. It was an etching, a carving, done with the most wondrous artistic skill, scarred into his friend's back. Forever.

He took a step forward. Kiro saw his face, saw that Hatori was looking behind him, and started babbling. Hatori felt himself move forward, saw his palm move slowly up until his fingers were on Kiro's white bandage.

"Oh God," he whispered, "Oh God…what has he done to you…"

I've already punished you, Hatori…in so many ways

The Dragon closed his eyes.

I'll take whatever punishment you ordain

"This," he said slowly, "is my fault. Everything…is my fault."

Kiro was already shaking his head. "No. No, it's not. Akito said this was my punishment for letting you go to Shigure's. For conspiring against him."

"He said that to you, but it was about me." Hatori couldn't believe how calm he sounded. "Kiro…did you look at your back?"

The man recoiled as if scalded. "No, no…"

"Then don't." Hatori saw the Ox trembling, his thin, quick breaths, and directed him to the bed. "Sit down: you're about to collapse from exhaustion. Let me…just…" He swallowed, "…look at your eye." He reached out.

Kiro jerked back, then flushed as he saw Hatori's face. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry, Ha-san…"

"Don't be." The doctor felt his own eye pang in sympathy. "Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to examine it…"

He kept talking in this soothing monotone; reassuring; murmuring as if to a wounded animal. He unwrapped the bandages, couldn't stop himself gasping at the extensive damage. "Can…you see anything?"

Kiro shook his head miserably. "A few days ago I could distinguish light from dark. Now…now nothing."

"Ok." He studied it some more. "How…?"

Kiro mumbled something about Akito's anger and a vase. Hatori's rigid discipline stopped him from shaking. "When?"

"The day you left."

That means…the day I talked to you on the phone, you were wearing a bandage over your eye. No wonder you sounded strange. Vomit rose in his throat and he swallowed thickly.

Kiro was rocking back and forth. "Akito," he muttered, "made it bleed…it wouldn't stop bleeding it wouldn't stop no matter what I did it wouldn't stop but he kept me alive…"

"Shhh." Hatori re-applied the bandage, feeling nauseous. "I'm going to look at your back later. I'm going to give you some sleeping pills, and you're –"

He stopped as the man gripped his hand. "Listen to me," Kiro said quietly, so quietly that Hatori bent down, "Just listen, Hari…I know…I know you love him…but he isn't human, Hari…" His voice was beginning to fray at the edges.

"Kiro..."

"I saw him. The real him. The one that you and the others worship."

Hatori gently eased his hand from Kiro's iron grip. The man's tawny right eye was unnaturally bright. "Kiro. Don't talk about it. Calm down: I think you have a fever…"

"You haven't seen him, have you? Have you, Hari?"

The doctor carefully put a blanket around the bare shoulders. "I'm going to get the sleeping pills now."

"…You think I'm making this up."

"I want you to sit quietly." He felt the solid door behind him.

"How can you love him?" Kiro looked at Hatori with one single dead eye.

"I…just…" He scrabbled for the knob.

"How can you love him, Hari? You don't even know who he really is –"

As soon as he closed the door, Hatori leaned against the wall. He couldn't believe the extent of Akito's madness.

That eye. That back. That carving.

He was bleeding and helpless while Akito and I were…

He barely made it to the toilet.

Hatori wiped his mouth, then rinsed out, spitting the sour taste from his tongue. He looked in the mirror: pale, sweaty. His stomach was nothing but bile and acid. He rubbed viciously at his face with a towel.

Outside Kiro's door with its brown sticky knob he breathed deep and evenly. He made sure to wipe the sweat off the orange canister he was clutching before opening the door.

"I want you to take two of these, and later when you're feeling better I'll look at your back. All right?"

Kiro looked at him glassily. The scrape on his face flamed bright and pink.

Hatori gave him a glass. Kiro tried to drink but the cool slimy water made him retch and he coughed pink-stained liquid onto the floor.

He felt Hatori's hands on his face. "I can't…I can't drink…it tastes like…"

my blood

"I can give you an injection."

Kiro thought of glinting metal. "No."

"Then…" Hatori surveyed Kiro with his bluegreen eyes, saw the exhausted twitching and opaque expression. "Why don't I stay here…until you fall asleep."

"Why don't…" Kiro jerked up his nodding head, "…you believe me?"

"Believe what?"

"Your lover…is not…"

The world began to dissolve, colours running together to form an endless stream. Hatori's figure became fuzzy and immaterial. Kiro felt hands on him, coaxing him down. He resisted. "He's not human…he's something else…I saw…"

"Go to sleep, Kiro." Hatori supported the Ox's lolling head.

"No." Kiro curled his fingers around Hatori's tie. "Hari…you're not listening to me."

The Dragon gave up trying to make his friend lie down; it was like moving a brick wall. Instead he kneeled beside Kiro and clasped the man's paw with his own hand. "All right," he said quietly, "What?"

"He smelt like blossoms." The tawny eye was already closed. "His eyes were shining and yet so dark…and his voice was like bells but what he said was so terrible…and his hands were so soft and white but what they did was –"

"Shhh." Hatori helped him lie down on his stomach. "Go to sleep."

"Ha'ri…" Kiro lowed, almost unconscious, "'M sorry…'m sorry, Ha'ri."

Hatori felt his icy heart shatter into a million pieces.

"…There's nothing to apologise for."

He watched until his friend's breaths were so deep and slow as to be almost non-existent before carefully drawing the blanket over him. He stood quietly. As he cast his gaze around the floor his eye caught the several brown stains. He sniffed. There was a lingering coppery smell.

Hatori stood very still and didn't look at the sleeping figure behind him.

This was your altar. This is where you sacrificed your Ox…Akito.

He touched his eye.

How many more people are to be hurt…because of me?

---

Akito draped himself across his wooden porch. Watery sunlight trickled over his body, pooling in his collarbone, yukata, anywhere where his flesh hollowed. It felt warm, and soothing, and the god sighed. His muscles were tender and sore from last night, the sunlight made the pain transform into a drowsy hum.

He felt a chill: his Dragon was behind him. And angry, too. Akito felt it radiate off him in glacial waves.

"That stain on the sheets," Hatori said calmly, "It wasn't your blood, was it."

The god shrugged. Yawned.

"Was it. Akito."

"Who cares if it was or wasn't." Akito turned his mink-dark head. "I know you're angry at me, Hatori. I can tell."

"Tell me. Tell me that isn't your blood on the sheets. You never had a nosebleed, did you." The doctor felt his cool palms pressed against his fingers. His icy coldness was back – it glittered in his eyes.

"No," Akito said placidly, "No, it wasn't my blood." He shrugged again. "There, I said it. What's your point, Hatori?"

Hatori said nothing.

"Why are you so angry?" The boy-god finally rolled over to face Hatori. The sun's rays reflected and hovered above Akito's head in a golden halo. He looked like a saint. The Dragon wasn't swayed.

"Why, Akito? Why did you hurt him?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

"No."

"Well, I had my reasons." Akito curled his knees up to his chest, revealing little white ankles. "Funny thing is, I don't really remember them right now…"

"Stop it, Akito."

Birds twittered outside. Akito smiled, running his fingers along the woodwork.

"What did you look like, Hatori?"

"What?"

"Your face." Akito slid an elbow under his chin. His eyes danced. "What did you look like, when you saw him? What was your expression? Show me."

The doctor stiffened. His mouth was a thin line.

"I decorated his back a little before you came, you know." The god sucked one finger where a splinter had got him. "I paralysed him, and made him promise not to shout for help when you came in." He ignored the keening noises Hatori was making.

"I bet he was bleeding for a long time."

The doctor took his fist out of his mouth and stared at the boy. He couldn't believe how he could love the sick, psychotic, grinning adolescent lying smug as a cat in front of him. But he did.

"He was just lying there, helpless, in pain, bleeding, while you and I were fucking." Hatori quivered at those echoing words. "That image really made last night all the more wonderful…"

Akito tugged his yukata back onto his shoulder. "He was my punishment for you, Hatori. Didn't it hurt when you saw him? When you saw his eye? His back?"

"All he did was care for you –"

"You're not listening to me." Hatori's eyes widened. "Did you think, when you hurt me, I wouldn't hurt you back in some way? Did you think you could hurt me, your God, and escape punishment?"

"If you have something against me, Akito, then why don't –"

"Would you rather I'd done it to you?"

Akito saw Hatori blanch, and regretted his words instantly. But he couldn't call them back. He went on:

"If you could, would you switch places with Minekura, right now?"

The Dragon lowered his head, feeling a horrible heat on his face. He shoved his shaking hands in his pockets.

"Well?"

When Hatori didn't answer, Akito smiled. He got up and tugged at the man until the Dragon was kneeling in front of him. The god whispered against Hatori's temple, "You broke my bones, so I hurt him. You left without telling me, so I hurt him. He didn't tell me you left, so I hurt him. He's an outsider, so I hurt him. He didn't fear me…so I hurt him. See?

"I am a God…so I hurt him."

Hatori looked up into those lightless eyes, where shadows gathered. Akito kissed his forehead.

"Let me prove to you my divinity…Hatori. Then, you'll understand."

What Hatori Sohma experienced that morning came back to him later in a series of blurred sensations, memories that would appear soft and lingering as mist on his cheek. He remembered his nerve-endings tingling. He remembered soft, luminous skin, a pair of shining dark eyes, little hands on his chest. He remembered a boy's body glowing palely in a room of shadows. He remembered himself dissolving under a pink mouth, one last arch, one last throb, a sigh, a trembling child.

He remembered the smell of nectar and lotus blossoms, and afterwards, awash in after-glow, weeping. For what, he didn't know.

As they lay together on the bed, Akito twined his pale limbs around Hatori and rested his drowsy dark head on his Dragon's chest.

"Who are you, Hatori?"

He answered: "I am yours, Akito."

The god leaned forward and nibbled on his ear. "Then…then, my Dragon, you know what you have to do."

"What?"

"Regarding Minekura." Akito moved his attention to Hatori's pale neck. "There is one way of lessening his suffering. You know what I mean."

Hatori did. He gritted his teeth and covered his face with a hand, so he couldn't see Akito's expression.

---

I walk the grounds in my grey trenchcoat. It's still summer, but the air today is unusually crisp and cool: it smells like the promise of autumn. The sharp wind stirs the trees. I made Akito stay inside: he's caught a cold from the drafts.

It's been a few days since Akito revealed himself to me. I'll never forget it, that wonder, as long as I live. I wonder what other secrets he's been hiding from the family. I wonder how and why. I wonder why I was the one allowed to touch that sacred body.

Kiro is still here. He's really not in any shape to leave and go back to the hospital where he used to work. He's in shock, in trauma. He jumps at the slightest sound. He flinches if you try and touch him, even casually, though he tries to smile it off. I know better.

Those carvings on his back will scar. No surgery could possibly rectify what Akito has done. Kiro will bear the mark of the Zodiac until he dies.

Kana hovers in my memory, her fragrant, pale ghost haunts my dreams. I wake shivering, drenched in sweat, knowing that the same thing is happening again. I do not love Kiro as I did Kana, but I love him as a dear friend, with an indescribable tenderness and fondness: his slow, trusting smile, his limitless patience, and his curious deep lowing voice.

It breaks my heart to see him as he is now.

It's my fault.

And I cannot, cannot blame Akito.

Today, I will carry out his order. It's the only way I can help Kiro.

He stands waiting for me by the edge of the pond, surveying the green glassy surface. We are alone. I want it to be this way, I want our privacy, away from the gossip and presence of the Main House. Where Akito is.

I call his name – he looks over, smiles his slow and trusting smile, and for a minute he's the handsome young man I first met in medical school, as I remember him, leaning over and asking to borrow my textbook. I have to shake these memories away or I can't do what I'm here for.

I survey him – I'm ever the watchful doctor. He stands stiff and straight, because of the scourge on his back. And his tawny eye has a hesitant look that wasn't there before.

"What is it you want to talk to me about, Ha-san?"

I make some vague reply. I have to do this, I have to prepare myself. Akito's waiting somewhere inside, waiting for me to report back. I take a deep breath.

"Kiro…"

Oh Kami I can't do it. Even if will help him, I can't do it. My palms tremble, I dig my fingernails in until my eyes prick.

I must've gone pale, or grey, because he's at my side, asking me what's wrong, do I want to sit down, should we discuss this inside? That makes my heart ache: I should be the one helping him. My resolve fires up again.

"Kiro. What if I told you…there was a way you could forget what happened?"

He's confused. I expected that. He doesn't know what I mean, I never told him about my secret power and what I did to Kana, and Yuki's friends.

"So you could forget this." I touch the bandage on his head. "And this." I trail my fingers lightly on cloth of his jacket.

To his credit, he doesn't flinch. "Ha-san?"

"I could," I go on, "make you forget about Akito and me and everything that's happened here. Forever."

Yes, he understands. I can see it in his face. He looks away, up at the dead grey sky, the thinning trees, the scummy surface of the pond. He bites his lip.

"Forget?"

"Everything that Akito's done. All of your memories of the Main House. I can do this, Kiro, and it'll be like you were never involved."

He still looks worried. "Forget…about you, Ha-san?"

I nod. Yes. Me. I would erase, from my dearest friend, all those memories that were precious to me. Of our time together, our student days. Of staying up all night in each other's rooms, trying to memorise anatomical charts, of passing notes during lectures, of everything. Of later days, when we visited each other, and called each other, proud of our medical degrees hanging in our offices. Everything.

Kiro shakes his head. "I don't want to forget about you, Ha-san."

I'm crying. I have to do this.

"Just…the memories of Akito, then. All those hours. You'll still remember me. I promise."

He looks at me, a little distressed because of my tears.

"As long as I remember you," he lows, "That's what I want, then."

Yes. Yes.

This isn't like the time with Kana. He still wants to remember me. I feel strong again. I can do this. I can take away some of the pain.

His brow feels cool against my hot palm.

"I promise…" My voice chokes. "I promise…this won't hurt. It'll be like falling asleep."

He's ready and waiting under my hand, I try and concentrate. There's that delicious flow of energy to my fingertips-

Then there's a glow, a jerk, he falls away from me. I catch him gently before he hits the ground, lay him down. There are no tears on those fine cheekbones, no sorrow resting on that sun-bronzed face. He looks asleep. It's all over now, I whisper.

I feel a tug in my chest. I turn.

Akito is standing on his porch. He's seen everything. Watching, wrapped in a quilt, bare feet poking out. His face is emotionless. He nods when I catch his eye, then turns and slips back into the darkness of his room.

I help some servants carry Kiro back to his room. I'll tell him a different story: the best I could explain those injuries was that he was the victim of a gang attack, and he came here later to recover. It's tenuous, but it will have to do.

I hope I've buried the memories deep enough.

It's late afternoon. I am with Akito, my god and lover. He leans against me, sniffling, coughing, wrapped in his large quilt. I made him take some medicine that causes drowsiness as a side-effect, and he jerks against me as he nods in and out of sleep. His cheeks are hollowed, his black hair dishevelled, his eyes glitter, but he's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

If I squint, and concentrate hard, I can see his godlike beauty hidden under the layers of sickly flesh. I can see a faint luminescence, see a rosy glow on his neck, smell the faint scent of nectar. There is a god, hidden, locked away in this boy's body.

Akito's drowsy, feverish. He stares at me with eyes that are a million miles away. He clasps my hand and tells me he forgives me. His wrist has healed completely now.

The god asks me who I am.

Who am I? I'm Hatori Sohma. The Dragon, the doctor.

But I know what he means.

I am yours, Akito. Always and forever, I am yours.

FIN

---

A/N: OMG! First Furuba fanfic completed! First of ANY of my fanfics completed! I hope the last chapters weren't too bad. If anyone flames me I might kill myself. Well, sulk, at least. Anyway…I plan to write MORE Akito/Hatori! As if I could stop now! And some other FB fics too, some not involving Akito. Maybe. :D Please review…and if there's any Akito/Hatori fans out there, go and write some Akito/Hatori shounen-ai! There's not enough on this site and I can't expect to do it all myself. However, I will have a lot of fun trying! XD